There are many applications in academic, industrial, and medical fields that benefit from devices and methods that are capable of accurately and controllably delivering fluids, such as liquids and gases that have a beneficial effect when administered in known and controlled quantities. Such devices and methods can be particularly useful in the medical field where treatments for many patients include the administration of a known amount of a substance at predetermined intervals.
One category of devices for delivering such fluids is that of pumps that have been developed for the administration of insulin and other medicaments for those suffering from both type I and type II diabetes. Some pumps configured as portable infusion devices can provide continuous subcutaneous medicament injection and/or infusion therapy for the treatment of diabetes. Such therapy may include, e.g., the regular and/or continuous injection or infusion of insulin into the skin of a person suffering from diabetes and offer an alternative to multiple daily injections of insulin by an insulin syringe or an insulin pen. Such pumps can be ambulatory/portable infusion pumps that are worn by the user and may use replaceable cartridges. Examples of such pumps and various features that can be associated with such pumps include those disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Nos. 13/557,163, 12/714,299, 12/538,018, 13/838,617, 13/827,707 and U.S. Pat. No. 8,287,495, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Ambulatory infusion pumps as described above typically rely on one or more batteries to power the drive mechanism of the pump to deliver medicament. Many such ambulatory infusion pumps are programmable and include data storage and review features accessed through user interfaces of the devices. Many such pumps also enable wireless communications with other devices, such as continuous glucose monitors and data storage devices, through communications protocols such as Bluetooth or the like. Each of these and other features that can be a part of ambulatory infusion pumps further require power from the pump battery. However, in order for such pumps to be of a size to be conveniently carried by a user, there is limited space for the one or more batteries and therefore limited battery capacity. As such, there is a need in the art for ways in which to preserve battery power while still enabling full functional use of such ambulatory infusion pumps.